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Sorry it has nothing to do with patience. I just like animals with style, most I've seen walk on everything. Thats not fun to even watch. I'm glad there is a group of people out there that enjoys them. It looks like yours run, great for you.

I take it you have never seen Linda Harger's Chessies. They are very fast, stylish, talented well trained and most make FC-AFC. I have seen littermates and closely bred Chessies that were real slugs, I suspect that what I'm seeing is a difference in training.

John R, you have nailed it. You have to know your chessie very well. THey will shut down and become slug-ish when they perceive that they have been treated unfairly. But they are not soft!

I'm not sure you understand the definition of "soft"

"The thing I admire about the rat tail is that it takes commitment. It's not like one day you just decide you want one, you have to grow out that bad boy and you have to repeatedly convince the hairdresser to trust you because it's a great idea."

I take it you have never seen Linda Harger's Chessies. They are very fast, stylish, talented well trained and most make FC-AFC. I have seen littermates and closely bred Chessies that were real slugs, I suspect that what I'm seeing is a difference in training.

John R, you have nailed it. You have to know your chessie very well. THey will shut down and become slug-ish when they perceive that they have been treated unfairly. But they are not soft!

For about ten years we had a great training group here in Kalispell, there were five regulars including myself, who rarely missed a session. I had two Goldens, Jim had a wonderful FC-AFC lab, there were two others with Labs and Kerm Pearson had two knucklehead Chessies. Kerm was a retired vet, had always had Chessies and just loved them. Kerm was also one of the most generous, dedicated trainer I knew, but he let those dogs con him to death. What was apparent to me and Jim after trying to fix some of Kerm's problems over the years, was the standard approach that would work with a Lab or Golden usually backfired big time. Also, though physically strong, I believe Chessies are a bit softer than a Lab or even a field bred Golden, you don't want to use big corrections.

I mentioned Linda Harger before, I would love to train with her and see how she traines her dogs, as I said they are very stylish and well trained. Kerm's dogs would walk to the flyer in training, acted sulky as if they resented the fact that they were being forced to do this stupid game. But if you took that same dog hunting, it hit the icewater like it was nothing, handled perfectly on huge ice cold waterblinds and didn't miss a bird. I think the secret that Kerm never learned was how to make the training as fun as hunting for his Chessies, looking back I think we did Kerm a disservice by forcing our Carr based training methods on him and his dogs.

Suit yourself Russ. It does not apply to this thread anyway unless you are saying that Chessies ARE soft.

I am certainly saying that the ave Chessie is softer than the ave Lab. I'm also saying that in your previous post you describe soft then say chessies aren't. I'm convinced that many of the "one dog" stories and "attack the trainer" stories we hear are from back in the days when training was much rougher and the dogs in question couldn't handle the pressure(soft). With todays training techniques, Chessies handle common modern training practices better because the corrections are much more fair (IMO). Which is also why I think you are seeing more chessies do ok in a pro trainer setting than you did back before collars or even in the early one button collar days.

"The thing I admire about the rat tail is that it takes commitment. It's not like one day you just decide you want one, you have to grow out that bad boy and you have to repeatedly convince the hairdresser to trust you because it's a great idea."

There's certainly a lot of nostalgia and romance surrounding Chessies.

After a day of gunning, a Chessie will purge his loins of the salty water of the Great Icy Bay that his father and his ancestors before him swam in during the days of market gunning............. An 'ole Lab will just lick his butt!!

There's certainly a lot of nostalgia and romance surrounding Chessies.

After a day of gunning, a Chessie will purge his loins of the salty water of the Great Icy Bay that his father and his ancestors before him swam in during the days of market gunning............. An 'ole Lab will just lick his butt!!

/end thread

"The thing I admire about the rat tail is that it takes commitment. It's not like one day you just decide you want one, you have to grow out that bad boy and you have to repeatedly convince the hairdresser to trust you because it's a great idea."